God's Stupendous Promises
Every sincere Christian that I know seems to have a short list of bible promises that they cling to when times get tough, or when they face an overwhelming situation. I’ll admit it…. I have my own favorites.
At the top of my list are two promises that I come back to, again and again. Philippians 4:19 “And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory, by Christ Jesus.” And Matthew 7:7 “Ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you.”
When I read these promises, it almost seems too good to be true. Doesn’t it sound like God is offering us a massive blank check, inviting you and I to whip out a pen and to fill in the amount?
Over the last six years that I’ve been flying in Guyana, I’ve seen again and again how God has fulfilled both of these promises my own life.
In six short years, the Lord has provided no less than five different airplanes for me to fly. Now I have to admit that most of these airplanes were temporary aircraft, available for only a few short months. But the truth of the matter is that God has always provided an airplane, precisely when we needed it most, so we could stay in the air. And the last airplane, which we are currently flying, has been serving in Guyana for nearly three and a half years. Isn’t God amazing?!
But our needs go far beyond airplanes. In fact the biggest need that I’ve encountered in this line of work is the need for good missionary pilots.
Yet even in this, God has been faithfully fulfilling his promise.
A year and a half ago, the Lord brought another pilot family into our GAMAS Aviation Program. The Anderson family, incidentally, is also from the state of Oregon, and Todd Anderson is a commercially rated pilot, and a licensed airplane mechanic.
Since they’ve come to Guyana, we’ve been working slowly but surely toward getting Todd checked out to fly in Guyana’s jungle interior. At one point it looked as if Todd would complete his new pilot checkout, but because of maintenance delays, and a scheduled furlough, the Anderson family has had to travel back to the States for a little vacation.
But perhaps the most exciting recent turn of events is that God has provided us yet another airplane for our project to use! Unbelievable but true. The sixth airplane in six years! One of our other GMI aviation projects has graciously offered us the use of a Cessna 180 which has been sitting in storage.
There are come clear advantages to this plane.
First of all the airplane has most of the “bush modifications” already installed, so this will save us significant amounts of time in preparing the plane for Guyana. Secondly, the airplane comes with a newly overhauled engine. This is huge since we fly long stretches of time over an unbroken jungle canopy. We need a reliable engine. Third, the plane comes with some upgraded fuel tanks, landing gear, and a new engine mount to make the airplane stronger and more rugged.
But there are some challenges that we face with this airplane as well. After the airplane flew up to the States six years ago for an engine overhaul, it was partially disassembled, and stored in a hanger and a garage. While we have all of the individual pieces, it’s going to take a couple mechanics 3 to 4 months of solid work to fix up this airplane so it’s airworthy. The tail section needs some sheet metal work done, and the airplane desperately needs a new paint job before it flies down to Guyana.
After discussing our plan of attack together with the Andersons, they have graciously chosen to delay their return to Guyana. In a week or to they will relocate to Collegedale Tennessee where the airplane is currently located, so that Todd can oversee the reassembly of the plane.
By January, I hope to fly up to the States, and together, the Andersons and I will fly the airplane through the Caribbean back to Guyana.
With two full time pilots and two airplanes we can fly anywhere in Guyana in less than and hour and a half!
We’re praying that within three years we’ll have three full time pilots and three full time airplanes serving from three different locations throughout Guyana.
Of course riding it out on the ground is much better than flying through it! A week ago I rode a stormy updraft that carried me up over 3000 feet! 
We’re concerned about this because we always seem to have a cloud of mosquites that lives outside our front door. They seem to like to live in our shoes. Every time we go in and out of the door, the mosquitoes flit merrily inside. Joy a couple days ago bought some mosquito coils to try and keep them away, but I’ve heard that it’s not good to smell the smoke from these coils since the smoke is carcinogenic and has been shown to cause cancer. You can’t win!!!
This last Sunday the weather was fantastic, so Derek Lindie and I rode on bicycles to two bible studies in the poor neighbourhood of Sophia. God is opening many doors of opportunity (almost too many!). At every location we find scores of people interested in studying the bible, but ironically we're having more difficulty finding church members willing to go out and give the bible studies. Please pray for our little evangelistic group that we would continue to move forward in faith, and that God would send out more workers into His harvest.
I also took a trip down to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) to get some more answers. After explaining my dilemma, the employees eventually directed me to the top floor, to the office of Mr. Low, who was one of the senior managers. Mr. Low listened carefully to my story, but very nicely explained that the only tax that could be waived was the 5% duty. The VAT was required by the Guyana constitution, and there was no way around it. 
Two weeks later I had the privilege of driving to Timehri International Airport with all my paperwork in hand, to get the engine released from customs. 
At this very moment the new engine is installed on the airplane, and Todd Anderson (one of our GAMAS mechanics), and I are working feverishly to finish up the annual inspection so we can get back in the air to continue this life saving work. 